Acquisitions/transactions
Ipsos has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire research and consulting group The BVA Family.
NIQ has signed a definitive agreement to acquire discovery and inquiry platform for sensory insights Gastrograph AI to enhance CPG innovation through AI-driven data, platforms and capabilities.
WPP has acquired data collaboration platform InfoSum. InfoSum will join WPP’s media investment group GroupM.
Marketing success and customer data intelligence solutions provider Validity has acquired e-mail optimization and testing solutions company Litmus.
Data intelligence firm Consumer Edge has agreed to acquire Earnest Analytics, a transaction and health care data firm. The transaction is expected to close this month. Terms were undisclosed.
Alliances/strategic partnerships
TV metrics and analytics company Kinetiq has created a strategic partnership with creative effectiveness platform DAIVID to improve how advertisers evaluate and optimize TV advertising performance at scale.
TV audience measurement company OzTAM has partnered with Samba TV and Nexxen to launch a proof-of-concept project to explore new measurement possibilities for Australia’s media industry.
Data, analytics and AI strategy consultancy Cynozure has created a strategic partnership with business intelligence platform Omni to help businesses improve data investments by combining BI technologies with strategy and implementation services.
Qualtrics and LangChain have partnered to develop Qualtrics Experience Agents on LangChain’s LangGraph platform.
AI company Qloo has expanded its strategic partnership with advertising company JCDecaux.
Informa TechTarget and GTM platform for B2B enterprises Demandbase have created a strategic partnership to help mutual customers drive better business outcomes and ROI from account-based marketing initiatives.
Insights tech and AI solutions company Actnable.AI has launched in the U.S. market through a partnership with marketing technology consulting firm Elliam. The partnership will offer U.S. market researchers access to an AI toolbox to improve research operations for American insights teams.
StackAdapt has partnered with Lyft Media to launch programmatic in-app advertising within the Lyft app.
Association/organization news
The Marketing Research Education Foundation will host the fifth annual Race Around the World for Education, a virtual race held from May 1-31 to help raise money to support global education for children. To learn more and to register, visit https://runsignup.com/Race/MN/SaintPaul/MREFAroundtheWorldRace.
A federal indictment from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of New Hampshire, has charged eight defendants in connection with an international scheme to allegedly bill $10 million in fraudulent survey data. According to the indictment, in 2014, senior leaders at research firm Op4G decided to increase company revenues by generating fabricated survey data. In or around 2018, Op4G leaders moved the fraudulent survey operation to a new company, which became Slice. By 2019, Op4G and Slice began conspiring with a senior leader at an international company, SNWare. To execute the scheme, some of the defendants allegedly recruited “ants,” who pretended to be legitimate survey takers but instead were paid a nominal fee for completing surveys that produced fraudulent research data. Some of the defendants even fraudulently took large quantities of surveys themselves and received significant payment for their work. The Insights Association has issued a statement offering guidance and support to firms whose data may have been impacted, including information on how potentially affected firms can contact the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Following the Op4G and SliceMR data fraud indictments, ESOMAR released a statement condemning “any fraudulent activity that undermines the integrity of market, opinion and social research” and announcing that, effective immediately, “Slice MR and all known affiliated individuals shall be suspended from all rights, privileges, events and listings associated with ESOMAR membership, pending final disciplinary outcome.”
Awards/rankings
Cognitive insights and cognitive marketing company BioVid has been named a winner in the 2025 Artificial Intelligence Excellence Awards, presented by the Business Intelligence Group.
The Market Research Council has named Carol Haney as the winner of the Innovator award and Pepper Miller as the winner of the Research Ambassador award.
The Insights Association has named the North Atlantic Chapter as Chapter of the Year and Michael Everhart of the North Central Chapter as Chapter Volunteer of the Year.
Comscore has been awarded Media Rating Council accreditation for its household-level TV measurement. The accreditation covers its national and local TV Time-Based Grid reports.
New companies/new divisions/relocations/expansions
DVJ Insights has opened an office in Norway to support its Nordic presence and strengthen its global approach.
A team of research industry veterans, led by Tod Johnson, have launched Tenetic, a platform offering consumer measurement capabilities in over 200 local U.S. markets and nationally. The founding team includes John Bremer, Bill Engel, Bill Livek, Kathi Love, Darren Person, John Rose, Karyn Schoenbart and Chris Wilson.
Data and tech company Numerator will expand its consumer rewards app Receipt Hog into Germany in May.
The Coalition for Innovative Media Measurement has launched an initiative to explore the changing economics of currency grade national TV measurement in the U.S., led by Manish Bhatia and Josh Chasin, in collaboration with CIMM’s Steering Committee.
Pratik Sharma and Brent Schierkolk have launched Opsonomy, a consultancy offering personalized advisory services.
As reported by CoStar News, market researcher Forrester has renegotiated the terms of its Cambridge, Mass., corporate headquarters, shrinking its presence at 60 Acorn Park Drive from about 236,600 square feet down to less than 118,290 square feet. "As part of our routine review of office space, we’ve decided to maintain our global headquarters in Cambridge," Shweta Agarwal, Forrester's vice president of corporate communications, said in a statement to CoStar News. "Our new lease is right-sized to align with our hybrid work model."
Research company earnings/financial news
Buynomics has raised $30 million in its Series B round of funding led by Forestay Capital.
Customer intelligence platform Sturdy.ai has raised $6 million in its seed funding round led by Voyager Capital.
Ipsos reported first-quarter 2025 revenues of €568.5 million, with growth standing at 2.0%, including -1.8% organic, 2.9% from scope effect and 0.9% from favorable currency effects. The firm reports that the new American tariff policy has not had a significant impact on its activity at this stage but says the global political and economic context “calls for caution.”
Research startup Listen Labs announced it has raised a total of $27 million in seed and Series A rounds led by Sequoia’s Bryan Schreier.